


Memorial

by DapperSheep



Category: Food Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Characters - Freeform, Drabble, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 20:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17168540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DapperSheep/pseuds/DapperSheep
Summary: Every year, without fail, Borscht has a tradition she keeps up.





	Memorial

**Author's Note:**

> Look who ran off with an idea after doing some research on borscht as the food item. This piece of fanfiction is working off headcanons as at the current time of writing, there is no accurate information on Borscht.
> 
> Unbeta'd.

 

When it had only been her in this quiet, nondescript bar, she would close down the bar a few hours earlier. Those who were her patrons for years understood the significance of this day and shuffled out with a polite goodbye and a promise to come back when they were free. Others weren’t as kind and wouldn’t part with their glasses and their need to drown in alcohol, to which she would be forced to show them why no one messed with an unbounded Food Soul.

Thankfully, she could count those incidents on only her two hands since her Master Attendant had passed on and this bar was handed down to her.

She would make a small pot of traditional borscht, from which her namesake originated from. She took out the small glass jar where she had fermented parts of hogweed days before, then diligently began cutting up the vegetables and especially the beetroot.

She cooked it the way she remembered her Master Attendant taught her, the way they liked it to taste because it was the meal that they lived off on before they had established a steady income in the form of the bar. Borscht took the recipe to heart and hadn’t changed a thing of it.

After hours of cooking, she would set out two bowls on the table. One for herself, and one for the departed. She ate in the silence of the early hours of the morning, then the rest of the stew would be put away for her consumption despite that a Food Soul didn’t need to eat to survive. It was one of the few human habits she had developed and decided to keep.

This is her tradition every autumn. Nothing would sway her from this.

And now her tradition stretched to accommodate one more.

It wasn’t like that, not right away. She had extreme reservations about the Food Soul who had imposed himself onto her bar and used it for his business, claiming that it would be a mutually beneficial venture.

It wasn’t like she could argue, not when she had agreed to the terms both of them had spent a good portion of a night discussing. He needed a place to start his ‘business’, and she needed the extra income to keep the bar from going under and forcing her to sell it. This was the only thing left of her Master Attendant, and damn anyone who would take it from her.

It was almost too good when that proud bastard showed up in her bar one day with his proposition. And maybe it was, maybe he had a hand in her bar’s piling bills and increasing expenses for upkeep, but she highly doubted it.

Spaghetti was a Food Soul who wasn’t above being underhanded, but she understood from the get-go that he functioned on a strict set of principles though she couldn’t put a finger on what they are. She did question him one time why he didn’t just take control of the bar, to which he shot her a dry and haughty look.

“Pragmatism and delegation, my dear.” He answered. “I cannot take on all of the workload myself if I’m to keep this business running as smoothly as it should.”

Borscht was privy to the dark dealings Spaghetti made, understood that what he was doing was dangerous and could possibly get her and himself in trouble. But years had passed without them getting found out, and that in itself had been amazing until it slowly became too much of the norm that it lost its novelty to her.

And over that span of time, she began to observe her business partner. Began to piece together a gap filled puzzle that was Spaghetti. For someone who was as long-lived as her and ran a bar whose patrons could start a fight at any given time, observing people was something she had gotten good at.

She didn’t make it her business to nose into his personal life, but sometimes she can’t help it if it was sitting there like a white elephant in a dark room.

That was how she understood the melancholy in his gaze on the rare day that he was here when she was closing the bar early for her yearly tradition.

“It’s such a meaningless tradition. What would offerings of soup do for a dead Master Attendant?” Spaghetti scoffed at her. She felt anger build up in her, but wisely kept from throwing it out on him. It would only serve as a means for him to tease her more.

“We all have our habits, Spaghetti.” She replied, sliding the deadbolt of the door into place with a little more force than was necessary. “Mine happens to be paying tribute to the human who gave me a good life despite the hardships we faced. I don’t believe in a god, but I believe in prayers.”

“And this is your form of prayer?”

“The one I can bring myself to do, because it makes the most sense to me.” And with that, she stomped off to the kitchen to make the borscht. Spaghetti didn’t bother her all throughout her time in the kitchen, and she preferred it that way. This was a time where she wanted to be alone and focused at the task at hand, rather than be distracted by the redhead.

By the time she had finished with the borscht and was letting it cool for a while, she went to the small four man table in the adjacent dining room. She found to her surprise that the table had two half-filled glasses of vodka, a brand that did come from the top shelf of her bar, but the thought that Spaghetti would do this was the surprising thing about it all.

She found the Food Soul at the bar, perusing the shelf of alcohol without any real interest.

“You know you’re paying for that bottle.”

“Put it on my tab. I should have it paid after the next job has been fulfilled.” Spaghetti replied flatly.

The conversation tapered into silence. Borscht had hardly ever experienced Spaghetti not filling the silence with his higher-than-thou manner of speech, so she found herself a little curious.

“I’ve never seen you drink before.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Spaghetti shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not particular to alcohol, especially wine.” He said dismissively. Perhaps without meaning to, she had seen the tiny slip of his mask, seen the melancholy that spoke volumes that Spaghetti would never say. She understood then, what it could possibly mean.

So the vodka was a peace offering. Borscht can accept that. She watched him a little more before dropping her arms with a loud exhale.

“You’re here anyway. Do you want to try the borscht?” She offered, changing the subject.

“What difference is it from other stews?”

“A lot. I don’t cook it the way most people do it nowadays. It’s an old recipe from my Master Attendant.”

“Does it taste good?”

“Have you  _ ever _ tried borscht?”

The look on Spaghetti’s face said it all. And somehow after a little more coaxing, she managed to convince him to come try the soup.

It would forever be a moment worth remembering when she watched the way Spaghetti’s face scrunched up at the underlying tart smell of the borscht, and when he made the funniest face when he took his first sip. Out of politeness, he took a few more but eventually pushed the bowl away and excused himself to his room upstairs.

With these few moments, Borscht had seen a sliver of Spaghetti’s life. With a near eternity ahead of her, it gave her the time to reflect and connect everything that she knew, and what she continued to see as time passed.

Borscht never told him what she thinks. She’s at least convinced he wouldn’t appreciate it.

Spaghetti wasn’t always around for the following years, but Borscht never fails to leave out a single small bowl. Not for Spaghetti, who was still living, but for the person he had given his entire future over to.

“If only you knew.” She muttered to the silence.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Anybody want to take a guess at why Spaghetti says he’s not particular to wine? Come on, you know you want to.


End file.
